A replicated experiment for evaluating the effectiveness of pairing practice in PSP education

Abstract

Abstract Background: Handling large-sized classes is one of the major challenges in Personal Software Process (PSP) education in a tertiary education environment. We applied a pairing approach in PSP education and managed to mitigate the size challenge without sacrificing education effectiveness, which has been verified in an experiment in 2010 ( PSP2010 ). However, there are several issues (e.g., mutual interference among student pairs, confusing evaluation comments, untraceable corrections, etc.) existing in this experiment, which may create mist towards proper understanding of the education approach. Objective: In order to address the identified issues and better understand both pros and cons of the pairing approach, we replicated the experiment in 2014. Method: With new lab arrangement and evaluation mechanism devised, the replication ( PSP2014 ) involved 120 students after their first academic year, who were separated into two groups with 40 pairs of students in one group and 40 solo students in the other. Results: Results of the replication include: 1) paired students conformed process discipline no worse (sometime better) than solo students; 2) paired students performed better than solo students in the final exam; 3) both groups spent comparable amount of time in preparing submissions; 4) both groups performed similar in size estimation and time estimation of the course assignments; 5) the quality of the programs developed by paired students is no less (sometime better) than solo students. Conclusion: The replication together with the original study confirms that, as an education approach, the pairing practice could reduce the amount of submissions required in a PSP training without sacrificing (sometime improving) the education effectiveness.